Generate Balance and Register Reports in Ledger

Ledger’s two fundamental reports are balance and register.

Balance report — shows account totals:

ledger -f journal.ledger balance

This shows the balance of every account. Narrow it with account patterns:

ledger -f journal.ledger balance Expenses
ledger -f journal.ledger balance Assets:Checking

Register report — shows individual transactions:

ledger -f journal.ledger register Expenses:Food

This shows every transaction that touches Expenses:Food, with a running total.

Common flags:

• --period "this month" or -p "2024/03" — filter by date range
• --monthly or -M — group by month
• --yearly or -Y — group by year
• --sort date or --sort amount — change sort order
• --depth N — limit account hierarchy depth in balance reports
• --empty — show accounts with zero balance

Income statement (income and expenses for a period):

ledger -f journal.ledger balance Income Expenses --period "2024"

Net worth (assets minus liabilities):

ledger -f journal.ledger balance Assets Liabilities

Reports go to stdout, so they can be piped to other tools: ledger balance | grep Food, redirected to files, or processed with scripts.